Scapegoating Of Christians Begins

Does God hear the prayers of traditional Christians who pray for the Orlando dead? Do LGBT supporters? (Castleski/Shutterstock)

A reader e-mails to say that at his company today, one of the executives sent out an e-mail to all employees, saying that in the wake of the Orlando attack, employees should register with the HR department as LGBT “allies,” and start attending the company’s LGBT events. The reader worries that if he doesn’t sign up as an ally, he will be marked out within the company as an enemy, especially in light of Orlando.

Another reader forwards an e-mail message his Congressman, Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA), sent to constituents. In it, he makes religious and social conservatives complicit in the Orlando massacre:

Number three, we must recognize that homophobia cannot be contained. Hatred breeds hatred. We are horrified that one man targeted LGBT victims at two a.m. on an Orlando Sunday morning. But we are not blameless, when we tell government contractors it is okay to discriminate against someone because they are gay or lesbian – or tell transgender school children that we will not respect their gender identity.

You expect to see writers for Salon, Slate, Vox and other left-wing sites making that argument. But a US Congressman saying that if you oppose transgenders in girls’ locker rooms, you’re complicit with mass murder? It’s beyond disgusting.

Pastor Richie Clendenen stepped away from the pulpit, microphone in hand. He walked the aisles of Christian Fellowship Church, his voice rising to describe the perils believers face in 21st-century America.

“The Bible says in this life you will have troubles, you will have persecutions. And Jesus takes it a step further: You’ll be hated by all nations for my name’s sake,” he said.

“Let me tell you,” the minister said, “that time is here.”

More:

Clendenen said he saw “a lot of fear, a lot of anger” in his church after the Supreme Court [Obergefell] ruling. He said it made him feel that Christians like him had been pushed to the edge of a cliff.

“It has become the keystone issue,” he said, sitting in his office, where photos of his father and grandfather, both preachers, are on display. “I never thought we’d be in the place we are today. I never thought that the values I’ve held my whole life would bring us to a point where we were alienated or suppressed.”

And:

Some good may come of these hard times, he believes. Conservative Christians who have been complacent will have to decide just how much their religion matters “when there’s a price to pay for it,” he said. Christianity has often thrived in countries where it faces intense opposition, he noted.

Preaching now, Clendenen urged congregants to hold fast to their positions in a country that has grown hostile to them. And as the worship service wound down, he issued a final exhortation.

I have not the slightest doubt in my mind that if Hillary Clinton becomes president, the scapegoating of orthodox Christians of all kinds around LGBT issues will get much worse. The line will be that of the CBC’s Macdonald, who said:

Islam may be more overt about its homophobia than the other major religions — anyone who’s worked in the Middle East has heard some fool in high office declaring that there are no gays in Islam, and therefore no AIDS — but the fact is, conservative iterations of all the monotheistic faiths are deeply and actively and systemically anti-gay.

The sacred monotheistic texts contain prohibitions that would by just about any legal definition be considered hate speech in the modern secular world. …

Fundamentalists and traditionalists of all three faiths not only regard such passages as divine instruction, they actually portray their homophobia as a matter of religious freedom; something noble, protected by constitutions and essential to democracy, when in fact they are working to oppress and deny fundamental rights to people based solely upon the sexuality with which they were born.

The assault on orthodox Christians in particular and religious liberty in general will become much more intense. There can be no doubt at all that if Hillary Clinton becomes president, it will be turned into federal policy. Mark my words: under a Clinton administration, the IRS will be used to deny the tax-exempt status of Christian colleges that don’t capitulate.

Most conservative Christians I know find Donald Trump to be an excrescence. But as the attacks on Christians mount, and the campaign to demonize religious liberty as cover for hatred goes into overdrive, they will have to consider more carefully whether or not to vote for Trump as a matter of self-protection. As the AP story said:

Trump uses rhetoric that has resonance for Christian conservatives who fear their teachings on marriage will soon be outlawed as hate speech.

“We’re going to protect Christianity and I can say that,” Trump has said. “I don’t have to be politically correct.”

Every conservative Christian I know who has told me he or she is voting for Trump, despite everything, has said fear of what Clinton will do to religious liberty is at the heart of their decision. I get that. Boy, do I get that. And this week, it’s becoming ever clearer.

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116 Responses to Scapegoating Of Christians Begins

As for myself, I’d rather be honorably martyred under Hillary Clinton than live in dishonor under President Trump, effectively repudiating my Catholic beliefs as I shoveled moral excrement upon my Savior and my faith.

I was going to write a longer post, but The Mighty Favog states better than I could what my take on it is. Yes, I think that if Hillary wins, persecution of Christians like myself is a strong possibility but Jesus practically guarantees persecution anyway for his disciples, and I think being a disciple of Jesus at this time requires rejecting Trump, even by voting for Clinton.

* Actively and unequivocally encouraged violence against protesters at his campaign events

He encouraged people at the rally to use violence to stop anyone who tried to throw something on stage. Basically, he said “defend yourself.”

* Clearly stated his support of torture — acts that not only are profoundly immoral but also are defined as war crimes in both domestic and international law

I think that under his foreign policy we would have far fewer situations in which this would come up.

* Differs not a whit from Hillary Clinton on abortion, based on his record and not his multiple campaign positions on the subject

That should also be a reason not to vote for Clinton.

* Has reiterated his call for a ban on Muslims entering the United States, an act of religious bigotry that flies in the face of U.S. constitutional law and would, soon enough, be used against Christians once the forest of the law had been cut down and we had nowhere left to hide

* Has called for the retributive mass murder of terrorists’ wives, children and families because “We gotta be tough.”

Bad, and should be stopped. But it doesn’t hurt innocent people moreso than our current policies do – it’s not like drone bombings don’t cause a lot of collateral damage.

* Has used blatant bigotry and stereotyping to scapegoat and engender hatred toward Mexicans as a whole

Okay, so here you are just saying that he said mean things about (some) Mexicans. You’re saying he is morally reprehensible for not slobbering all over them like the MSM does.

* Sought to bully a federal judge of Mexican heritage presiding over a lawsuit against him, deploying outrageously racist arguments in the process

No, he was trying to dismiss the importance of the lawsuit in the eyes of the voters.

* Refused to immediately repudiate the support of onetime neo-Nazi and KKK grand dragon David Duke, and who regularly sends out rhetorical dog whistles to skinheads, Kluxers and all other ilks of alt-right refuse

He has disavowed the KKK and Nazis several times; the fact that once he misheard, or hesitated for some other reason, or wanted to be careful lest he misspeak – it’s not worth getting upset about. You’re inventing things to get angry about.

* Has refused to rule out using nuclear weapons in the Middle East and even Europe. Europe!

No one thinks anyone is going to use nuclear weapons.

* Is a well-known moral degenerate who routinely denigrates women, this in addition to his entire adult lifetime of sexually using and objectifying them. (We are supposed to elect this as president of the United States because we’re freaked out over gays and the tragically gender-confused? Really?)

Right, and Clinton is not a moral degenerate.

* Has built a long “business resumé” of shady dealings, crackpot schemes, failed ventures born of sheer narcissism and, finally, alleged out-and-out fraud.

Anyone involved in as large an empire as Trump will have connections to shady people. Plus, are you saying Clinton is pure on this?

* Routinely bullies his political opponents

* Routinely threatens his political opponents

Meh.

* Routinely makes slanderous and outrageous accusations against his political opponents, the latest being against the president of the United States when he insinuated Barack Obama was somehow in cahoots with Islamist extremists.

No, he said that “something was going on” which I took to mean that there was some reason why Obama refused to link the terrorist attacks to Islam, not that he agreed with the terrorist acts.

I am sorry, but even thinking of voting for such a candidate won’t fly — not on grounds of one’s faith in Jesus Christ, not on grounds of one’s support of the United States Constitution and the rule of law.

Then you shouldn’t vote. Even thinking about voting for Hillary Clinton won’t fly – not on the grounds of the lesser of two evils, unless you are willing to ignore Benghazi, the shady dealings of the Clinton Foundation, Clinton’s attempts to destroy women who accused her husband of assault or harassment.

If you said you couldn’t; vote for anyone this election, I could respect you. The fact that you are unwilling to hold Clinton to the standards to which you hold Trump suggests that you don’t really care as much about some of these things as you claim.

Honestly, from your talk about “racism” I think what really bothers you is that you have decided that imitating Merkel and flooding our country with the third world is a moral imperative, and the fact that Trump opposes that makes him a totally unacceptable candidate in your eyes.

To amplify what I said above: the tax exempt status of churches (they are not subject to the corporate income tax, and donations to them are tax deductible) does not derive from the First Amendment, but rather from the federal tax code, where all non-profits that do not engage in partisan politicking share the same exempt status. To change that Congress (note: not the president or the courts) would need to change the tax code– a move that would be fiercely opposed by the entire non-profit sector. As for property taxes, that tax exemption derives mainly from state tax codes, and also includes other institutions, e.g., hospitals, universities and museums. Again, any change would entail legislative action which would be fought by the institutions which enjoy that status.

This is not an issue to be concerned about in presidential politics. It is perhaps an issue to be concerned about in Congressional and legislative races– if you think there are folks running for office who would be willing to go up against everyone from Harvard University to the Red Cross to get at churches.

All this talk of scapegoating makes it sound as if LGBT individuals and their supporters have singled out Christians for criticism for virtually no reason at all. That’s ignoring the hostile or just boorish behavior of a lot of individual Christians, not to mention extremist groups such as the Westboro Baptists and others such as the violent Army of God, which targets gays. You may consider such people so marginal they shouldn’t be counted among real Christians, but there’s no reason to expect others will make such distinctions. Certainly Muslims haven’t escaped this kind of guilt by association with ISIS and guys like Mateen, no matter how often fairminded Westerners argue it’s wrong. Historically (and not that long ago), Christians were responsible for laws that limited, if not totally eliminated, the rights of homosexuals and other such minorities; it’s not really surprising they get defensive when Christians themselves get defensive today. It’s a true vicious cycle, and one hardly alleviated by the specter of conservative Christians voting en masse for a crude bully like Trump to supposedly protect themselves. As if.

On Sunday, I witnessed for myself how some Christians manage to keep the ill will coming. The young man who wrote the following was responding to the Orlando shootings on Facebook. A convert from Catholicism to an Evangelical group that recruits on college campuses, he’s a Facebook friend of one of my daughters, who, like many others who know him, was shocked that he said what he did, which inevitably brought on a deluge of replies, many noting he has a right to his religious beliefs, but still…I can understand how some, reading this sort of thing, may look at radical Muslims who seem to be motivated by similar thinking, or at Christian extremists who’ve been burning and bombing gay bars for decades now, and draw darker conclusions. The sad thing is the guy clearly thought he was being charitable:

“Many will say it was justice for their lifestyle…WRONG. Every soul matters to the Father and because of Satan’s deception and perversion with the help of unclean spirits, he has blinded many from the truth and in return these people have become rebellious – going against God’s word and principles because of manipulation by those things…The spiritual aspect of this event goes even deeper…A murderous spirit manipulating the Muslim man shot over 100 people, killing 50 of them with homosexual spirits…Both of these unclean spirits were working together…their agenda to send as many people to Hell with them and they accomplished it, in this tragedy. It might be hard to grasp, but this is why it is important to have the Holy Spirit dwelling within you.”

I’m pretty sure he wasn’t the only Christian of his kind who expressed similar thoughts that day. Is it really any wonder this sort of thing causes ill will, or that some people react as they do? How hard is it to misconstrue such social tone deafness for the kind of thinking (“the Devil, or even the Spirit, made me do it”) that leads to dead bodies on a nightclub floor?

None of this is to say anti-Christian sentiment is easy to deal with. I know what it’s like to be misunderstood and criticized as a “fundamentalist” for merely holding to the tenets of the Catholic faith. It’s not fair and it hurts to be unjustly pigeonholed. But as we’ve been told by Christian saints throughout history, our place is not to be understood, but to understand. Ultimately, reaching a certain level of mutual understanding is the only defense that actually holds.

“Rods statement that gays and their allies will further demonize Christians is breathtaking. The implication is that gay Christians don’t exist, not to mention the allies, and they are all Christian hating. How can he suggest such a thing? How can he turn this event into a political point to further his agenda? Sad day for this blog.”

Rod linked to examples as have other people. Some people ARE doing this. That’s true whether you want it to be true or not and no pointing that out doesn’t imply that there are no gay Christians or Christian allies.

Then you shouldn’t vote. Even thinking about voting for Hillary Clinton won’t fly – not on the grounds of the lesser of two evils, unless you are willing to ignore Benghazi, the shady dealings of the Clinton Foundation, Clinton’s attempts to destroy women who accused her husband of assault or harassment.

If you said you couldn’t; vote for anyone this election, I could respect you. The fact that you are unwilling to hold Clinton to the standards to which you hold Trump suggests that you don’t really care as much about some of these things as you claim.

Honestly, from your talk about “racism” I think what really bothers you is that you have decided that imitating Merkel and flooding our country with the third world is a moral imperative, and the fact that Trump opposes that makes him a totally unacceptable candidate in your eyes.

No, I need to vote to cancel out yours.

I have spent exactly zero time defending the ways in which Hillary Clinton is, as P.J. O’Rourke put it, “conventionally wrong.” You have spent all of your time trying to explain away, minimize or flat-out distort all the democracy-ending ways that Donald Trump is wrong.

All I’m saying is that it is my duty as a Christian and a patriot to vote for the merely horrible, as opposed to Trump’s extinction-level event.

Also, I’m not going to bother arguing balls and strikes with you, because that is futile today, and especially sanity-killingly futile with Trump supporters who, as a rule, love The Donald’s lies which confirm their prejudices a lot more than they do the truth, which doesn’t.

You gave yourself away with that last paragraph I excerpted. As was the case when I was growing up in south Louisiana in the 1960s and ’70s, when all else fails, resort to calling somebody a “n***** lover.”

Or, in the case of the Trumpkins, a Mexican-lover, a Muslim-lover, a Third World-horde-lover or whoever else counts as The Other these days.

Rod linked to examples as have other people. Some people ARE doing this. That’s true whether you want it to be true or not and no pointing that out doesn’t imply that there are no gay Christians or Christian allies.

This is absolutely true, but we should notice how terrible that argument was. How could pointing out that some gay people are trying to leverage the Orlando shooting to scapegoat Christians possibly imply that there are no gay Christians? The simplest counterexample would be the people doing the scapegoating are disjoint from those who are gay Christians, which is clearly a logical possibility. Honestly, I would be shocked to see a sixth grader making that argument. It is such a poor use of implication I am genuinely interested in how people learned to do it.

The thing is, this sort of hamfisted sublogic is really common now. Basically just take offense at something and use a bit of righteous anger to say that someone is making a nonexistence claim that no competent reading of the English language could support. It is really weird when you think about it.

I have spent exactly zero time defending the ways in which Hillary Clinton is, as P.J. O’Rourke put it, “conventionally wrong.” You have spent all of your time trying to explain away, minimize or flat-out distort all the democracy-ending ways that Donald Trump is wrong.

All I’m saying is that it is my duty as a Christian and a patriot to vote for the merely horrible, as opposed to Trump’s extinction-level event.

Also, I’m not going to bother arguing balls and strikes with you, because that is futile today, and especially sanity-killingly futile with Trump supporters who, as a rule, love The Donald’s lies which confirm their prejudices a lot more than they do the truth, which doesn’t.

You gave yourself away with that last paragraph I excerpted. As was the case when I was growing up in south Louisiana in the 1960s and ’70s, when all else fails, resort to calling somebody a “n***** lover.”

Or, in the case of the Trumpkins, a Mexican-lover, a Muslim-lover, a Third World-horde-lover or whoever else counts as The Other these days.

All this talk of scapegoating makes it sound as if LGBT individuals and their supporters have singled out Christians for criticism for virtually no reason at all. That’s ignoring the hostile or just boorish behavior of a lot of individual Christians, not to mention extremist groups such as the Westboro Baptists and others such as the violent Army of God, which targets gays.

Do I need to quote Lenin about the “embarrasses des richesses” again?

The government fighting to exterminate the Army of God is the same government that has come close to passing laws to execute gays.

Anne is correct that there are INDIVIDUAL Christians, and INDIVIDUAL Christian sects doing more or less what she rails against. Likewise, there are INDIVIDUAL gays and INDIVIDUAL gay advocacy groups that are doing more or less what Rod is wary of.

So, it is no refutation to announce “but so many others who share somewhat the same label are not being so bad” in any given direction. If the loudest mouths among any demographic can establish a climate of fear and intimidation, it doesn’t matter that many of their co-whatevers aren’t doing so. On the other hand, none of the loud-mouths are nearly so powerful as they preen themselves to believe. So channel your inner Charles Cosimano and tell them how insignificant they really are.

“You gave yourself away with that last paragraph I excerpted. As was the case when I was growing up in south Louisiana in the 1960s and ’70s, when all else fails, resort to calling somebody a “n***** lover.”

Or, in the case of the Trumpkins, a Mexican-lover, a Muslim-lover, a Third World-horde-lover or whoever else counts as The Other these days.”

If you’ve followed Glaivester, or my, or Noah172’s comments here (to name a few), we make no attempt to hide our preferences. There is no ‘giving oneself away’. And there is no shame in wanted to preserve America as it was, basically, since its inception as a polity.

For us demographic dissolution is not a moral imperative, and putting words in our mouths, and reliving the old tymie Civil Rights days (with rosie coke bottles on) won’t change that.

I have spent exactly zero time defending the ways in which Hillary Clinton is, as P.J. O’Rourke put it, “conventionally wrong.” You have spent all of your time trying to explain away, minimize or flat-out distort all the democracy-ending ways that Donald Trump is wrong.

By saying that Hillary is “conventionally wrong” you are defending her. And you have distorted Donald Trump in many ways, and distorted the significance of many of his comments. (For example, in “not ruling out the use of nuclear weapons” Trump presumably is working on the assumption that you never tell your enemies that there is anything that is totally off the table. There is no way he is actually going to use nuclear weapons short of a scenario that has already gone doomsday).

The point is that you only concern yourselves with why one candidate is bad, and then by default suggest the other candidate is the person one must vote for. Moreover, you outright state that anyone who takes a different view that you do calls into question whether or not they are a Christian.

And note your umbrella dismissal of my rebuttal, which is completely content-free. (I’ll come back to that later).

All I’m saying is that it is my duty as a Christian and a patriot to vote for the merely horrible, as opposed to Trump’s extinction-level event.

If Clinton continues Obama’s immigration policies, we are going to cease to exist as a nation. She and the rest of the Democratic Party are hell bent on opening our borders. As M_Young says, you are no patriot if you vote for her. Clinton equals the extinction of America – or, more likely, a civil war – and treating her as a merely bad option means your head is in the sand.

Also, I’m not going to bother arguing balls and strikes with you, because that is futile today, and especially sanity-killingly futile with Trump supporters who, as a rule, love The Donald’s lies which confirm their prejudices a lot more than they do the truth, which doesn’t.

You love the egalitarian left’s lies, which confirm your prejudices, more than you love the truth, which doesn’t.

You won’t argue balls and strikes with me because you do not have an argument, so the only way to disagree with my point-by-point rebuttal is to dismiss it out of hand as a minimization and distortion.

You gave yourself away with that last paragraph I excerpted. As was the case when I was growing up in south Louisiana in the 1960s and ’70s, when all else fails, resort to calling somebody a “n***** lover.”

Or, in the case of the Trumpkins, a Mexican-lover, a Muslim-lover, a Third World-horde-lover or whoever else counts as The Other these days.

No, I’m not calling you an anything-lover. I am calling you a white-person hater. You are not driven by a desire to help Mexicans, Muslims, and the Third World “horde.” I love the third world and have given money to help various missionary efforts directed at these people (including efforts which do involve offering them material assistance, I’m not just getting tracts sent out).

I am saying that you are a white-hater. You are driven by the fact that you despise white people (whether or not you are one yourself) and want to see them dispossessed from their countries and perhaps eventually driven to extinction. That any white people should want to exist or have any of their traditional countries exist is the only unforgivable sin in your eyes.

That hatred is what drives your “anti-racism” not an actual love of “the Other.”

In your agreement with Favog, I find it interesting that you do not consider a vote for Hillary Clinton to be a repudiation of your beliefs as a Christian.

Yes, I think that if Hillary wins, persecution of Christians like myself is a strong possibility but Jesus practically guarantees persecution anyway for his disciples

But supporting the political empowerment of someone who will persecute not only you, but others of your faith strikes me as deeply unloving of the other members of your faith, and Christ called Christians to love one another.

We are told that we will face persecution, and we should rejoice at that, and accept it. We are not told that we ought to seek persecution out.

and I think being a disciple of Jesus at this time requires rejecting Trump, even by voting for Clinton.

That you do not see being a disciple as requiring the rejection of Clinton suggests to me that you are minimizing the moral stain of her flaws while exaggerating that of Trump’s.